EXPa 2.1 Pro Edition

Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II.
c'g~
Posts:80
Joined:Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:26 pm
Location:Ukraine

Postby c'g~ » Sat May 10, 2008 6:45 am

Hello everyone, U have my gratitude for all of your replies.
First off, I like it. I can see myself playing this (or a future version) sometimes years from now.
Thnx
It's very nice to have an altered help.lbx, giving the user some idea what's been altered. (Extremely minor issue: some of the Hypertech advances have garbled text as titles, like soc'giology; physc'gs I; C'ghmemistry I.)
It’s just a trade mark, for example soc'giology – try to find there my nickname.
I do wish installation didn't replace old files... at least not without an "automatic" way of backing them up; and then being able to switch back and forth between versions very easily. I'll probably end up writing my own batch (*.bat) files to do this, but it would be nice if the download came with something like that already.
Sorry, but I’m really have no time now to do this, maybe in future I’ll deal with it.
I'm not a big fan of perfect game balance anymore. I think it's more important to have mods give a different game experience than the unmodded original, and to encourage different strategies. And it looks like your mod will do a good job at giving a different experience this way.
I don’t think that someone can obtain the perfect balance, but still I will try to do it, always.
And yes, thank U for notice the whole purpose of EXPa Pro Mod.
That said, some of the race pick costs I do consider unbalanced.

Tolerant (14) and Aquatic (8) seem to cost too much. (I thought Tolerant was fairly priced in vanilla at 10, and is worth less with pollution processor early in a tech tree.)
It’s a veeeeeeeeeeeryyyyyyyy vast question, but I’ll try to be simple.
As far as I know all races in MoO2 (and any of its MODs) can be divided on 3 groups: Prod (Pop), Tech, Rush races. So I’ll consider this sentence like fundament for next suggestions of mine.

Aquatic: all depends on map configuration, if it’s Organic Reach – Aquatic rocks! But even on Average – Aquatic gives an early food advantage. Then, when U will obtain Terraforming, U just boost your economy really fast. Moreover, with Aquatic U can pick negative ability “-0,5 Food” (and it’s worth a whole -4 points). And in generally, Aquatic can be picked by Prod and Tech race (about Unification +Aquatic food boost I have nothing to add – it’s marvelous). So it’s 8 points.

So Tolerant (14) – it’s most imbalanced race pick in the game now, so for the balance I raised its cost. But even now Tolerant still not fully balanced.
Why do I think like that? First of all it’s all about playing style of EXPa Pro – early absence of pollution just gives U a HUGE advantage, practically impossible to surpass for other players with pollution problems. Moreover in EXPa not only Prod, but even Tech races can pick Tolerant.
Besides, with Tolerant it’s really luxurious to play – U can calculate your prod precisely, U don’t need to research antipollution, U don’t need to build antipollution etc.
Thus, Tolerant is 14 now (all presented statements was approved by my personal testing – it’s NOT just suggestions, but of course I can be wrong)
+1/+2 Spying (1/2) looks too cheap.
This questions related to difference of EXPa Pro compared Original MoO2 and it’s too a really roomy question. Strait forward, it’s just because of nature of Race Creating in EXPa: each point is really precious – U just can’t create a competitive race without take this statement into account.
Moreover, it was my intention to “force” players to pick NOT just economical abilities but Military abilities as well. Besides, it’s adding much more freedom in race construction, don’t U think?
Since I play SP with AI opponents, Telepath (4) seems like a steal.
This ability shines on its full power only in hands of Rush race player. On Large Maps it’s really hard to win with it (tested of course)
IMO, Fantastic Traders is fully worth 2 points (maybe even 3 points), although I realize DC had it even lower at 0.5 picks.
FanTraders earlier was 2 points, but in further development I saw, that there a couple of interesting races, which can’t be create with that cost of FanTraders. So now its cost just 1 point.
Siron's DC mod seemed like it consistently doubled the value of what I had considered "fair" for negative picks. Your values seem less consistent. As your mod stands, I'd tend to use: -50 population (-8), low-g (-7), and maybe -poor HW (-3). I'd avoid picking: -10 spy (-1), uncreative (-3); and I probably wouldn't use -food (-4), -0.5BC (-4), or feudal outside of an advanced tech start (-7 compared to dictatorship). Going back to what I said about game experience, I'd prefer feudal at -10, even if some thought it became "too good"; since it would give a good excuse to use it, when I never really used feudal in vanilla MOO2.
DC Mod just have different Tech tree – so it’s whole another story.

-50 Pop – is a tough negative ability – it’s really questionable and needs to be tested more. If U like, U can help me with it and share yours feelings and thoughts about it.

Low-G – it’s a common negative for Tech race – good choice I’d said
Poor HW – it’s a common choice for Prod races (but some of Tech races can pick it too)
-10 Spy – is considerably easy negative (but not for Democracy)
-0,5 BC – can be only picked with FanTraders or if U plays with Heavy Prod Race (UniAquaProd etc.)
Feudal – it’s just Rush races pick – in normal games without rushes Feudal just can’t compete (but of course I can be wrong – maybe there is a way). Some people thinks that Rush races in EXPa overpowered, thus Feadal is only -8.
One very minor weird bug: I could refit my frigates before researching biospheres, but afterwards got some message like "you do not have sufficient technology to build ships" after I got that tech. After I got my next tech (iirc), I was able to refit them again. I'm not positive what really caused it, or if it was even mod related; and it was a very unimportant issue for me.
Hmm, I never see this kind of things. Really don’t know. Is this an often bug?
Again, thank you for the mod, and I'll probably play it on and off for as long as I'm still playing MOO2.
I’m really glad to hear this, BIG thnx for approving my work.

Tifi and MikeTn – sorry guys, but I really have no more time to spare, I’ll try to answer on your questions soon when I’ll have more time. Just one thing:
2 points each for +50 attack & defence!?
– it’s 3 points for 50 def or att.

See U later.
Last edited by c'g~ on Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.

MikeTn
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Joined:Fri May 09, 2008 11:20 am
Location:Tennessee
Contact:

Postby MikeTn » Sat May 10, 2008 8:08 pm

OOOOOPS!!!!!!!!! my bad......the problem was simply that my copy of XP (which finally crashed yesterday) did NOT copy all of the files from one directory to the directory I am playing EXPa in.

If anyone has posted a reply, my thanks.

8)
continuing to learn

User avatar
Tifi
Posts:41
Joined:Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:23 am

Postby Tifi » Thu May 15, 2008 4:41 am

Apologies, 3 points each for +50 att/def rather than 2 as I stated :oops:

However, it's still way too cheap really.
Here's my reasoning.

Defence
Ship defence is a nice bonus to have, but not absolutely critical - indeed taking a penalty in def. is considered 'normal' as its effects can be almost totally negated just by getting better engines, which you are going to be doing anyway regardless.
DCV could probably stay at -1/1/3

Attack
Ship attack is not just nice, it is all important as it not only makes beam weapons more effective it also gives an initiative bonus.
Although the same is true for OCV with computers as is for DCV and engines, its effect is much more pronounced as it allows early ships to act as reliable missile interceptors *without* battlescanners or advanced computers thus simultaneously:
- nullifying the usual early missile boats
- making cheap laser/fusion/MD ships much more effective
- making ships move first, coupled with above eff. increase means more battles won at same or lower cost.

With all that in mind, the converse is true for OCV penalties.
-attack is a truly, truly horrible disadvantage.

OCV values would be nicer at -8/4/8, possibly even the full -10 for the penalty.

ck07
Posts:4
Joined:Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:23 pm

Can't download the file

Postby ck07 » Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:43 pm

The host site mentioned in the top post (rapidshare) has a bug in their access procedure. You're supposed to copy 6 or 7 characters to a box but the box accepts only 4.

Can 2.1 Pro be downloaded anywhere else?

Thanks.

c'g~
Posts:80
Joined:Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:26 pm
Location:Ukraine

Have fun!

Postby c'g~ » Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:07 am

The host site mentioned in the top post (rapidshare) has a bug in their access procedure. You're supposed to copy 6 or 7 characters to a box but the box accepts only 4.
Hi, ck07.
U need to enter only 4 characters with ‘kitten’ drawing (it situated near characters).
Or u may try to download EXPa Pro in the morning till 12 a.m. (Central European Time), then u will not need to enter security code (not sure about this, but give it a try).

Have fun!

c'g~
Posts:80
Joined:Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:26 pm
Location:Ukraine

ACTIVE

Postby c'g~ » Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:12 am

Hi guys, c’g~ here.

When I saw 73 downloads of EXPa Pro 2.1 on my account I was astonished. So now I feel the urge to inform all of you that EXPa Pro is ACTIVE project.
Those past months I have worked on update for it. Sometimes less effective, but sometimes without a break work has been in progress.
Thus I assure you, this new version of EXPa Pro is worth waiting.
I can’t give an exact date of release because a lot of time has consumed by testing (and I need to do even more of it), but regardless EXPa Pro will be coming soon.

With best wishes,
c’g~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

MikeTn1
Posts:3
Joined:Wed Dec 02, 2009 11:24 am

Postby MikeTn1 » Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:34 am

I have tried the EXPa Pro 2.1 and I really liked it. I beleive you mentioned that the tech tree was available? (I cannot access it right now... I am not at my home computer right now) I would really, really like to look over the entire Tech Tree before commenting further on it.


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